Are the supposed "Gender Wars" that are in progress at the moment a new thing or have they been going on since time immemorial ? Are they due to heredity or environment ? Why have women been oppressed in the past ? Has the pendulum swung back too far ? Is each sex a prisoner of their genetics ? Will they ever end ?

Please note that in the examples below I am speaking generalities and not referring to specific examples or persons.

1) Lets go back 20,000 years when our ancestors were "simple" hunter gatherers.
It was natural that the men would become the hunters while the women, because they had prime responsibility for the children, would become the gatherers.

Is this reflected in the ability of men to sit "doing nothing" (which drives women wild) and the shopping habits of women where they go from shop to shop even if they have no intention of buying anything (which drives men wild) ? Does this reflect that men developed their ability due to having to sit waiting for something to come down a game trail while women cruised to a tree to see if the fruit was ripe, to a patch of grass to see if the seed was ready to pick and so on ?

2) Women complain that men are always looking at their breasts. But face it, breasts are are "out there" advertising. They say to a man "I am fit and I can feed your babies". Naked breasts have been a feature of art since people first started scratching on cave walls. Are the so called "fertility goddesses" that have been found in pre-historic caves featuring women with graphically enhanced breasts and genitalia just stone age porn ?

3) "Behind every successful man there is a good woman" There are many historical references of conflict in harems between women seeking for their sons to become the heir to their father or kings going on wars of conquest due to their wife's ambition for their son to inherit a larger empire ? How many times has male ambition been due to encouragement from his wife ?

4) It was once said to me that the reason mankind has progressed so far in such a short time (relatively speaking) is due to "encouragement" by women.

e.g. Cavewoman gets sick and tired of carrying water from the creek up to the cave. Therefore caveman has to learn how to build a mud hut closer to the creek. Mrs Columbus is giving Mr Columbus a hard time, so he sails off and discovers America. Mrs Cook is giving Capt. Cook a hard time so he sails off and discovers Australia. Mrs Einstein is giving Albert a hard time so he goes down to the garden shed and discovers Relativity. Mrs Thompson is giving Mr Thompson a hard time so he goes down the garden shed and invents a sub-machine gun....

5) Women are multi-orgasmic and capable of "indefinite performance", whereas a man is is "burnt out" fairly quickly. No man is ever totally 100% sure that the child a woman bares is really his. Therefore I can see why in societies where hereditary titles are passed through the male line why women are "locked up" in a harem or otherwise cloistered. Societies where such titles are passed through the female line are much more honest as most people are never in doubt as to who the mother of a child is.

How much of our current society is artificial according to nature ? In most other species the aim of the male is to pass on his genes to as many females as possible while the aim of the female is to ensure the survival of her offspring. Some species mate for life and male and female share the care and feeding of the offspring while in most the female has sole responsibility. In some species the female eats the male immediately after mating, in others the males only survive till the end of the mating season while the females live much longer.

So, how much is the relationship between men and women due to hereditary and how much due to environment. One man has the ability to impregnate every woman on Earth but one woman could not ensure the survival of the human race. Women are not just "men with boobs". There is millions of years of evolution in the works here that has shaped the off-times competing male and female psyches.

I'd like the opinions of others on this. If nothing else it will provide a diversion from the interminable "Liberal vs Conservative" fights on other threads. The only thing I ask is that posters look at the whole issue, not just nit pick on one particular point.

Ooooh this could be a can of worms you've opened up here! I vaguely agree with most of your analogies but, I will comment upon no.5

Women are multi-orgasmic and capable of "indefinite performance", whereas a man is is "burnt out" fairly quickly. No man is ever totally 100% sure that the child a woman bares is really his. Therefore I can see why in societies where hereditary titles are passed through the male line why women are "locked up" in a harem or otherwise cloistered. Societies where such titles are passed through the female line are much more honest as most people are never in doubt as to who the mother of a child is.

I think your performance statement is probably more apocryphal, than medically proven. As for paternity, are you suggesting that generally speaking most women are not faithful to their partners? In the case of the female line, do men have no part to play other than at procreation?

However I will say that various studies purport to suggest that anything up to 20% of children born are not the assumed fathers offspring. I remember in the 1970's speaking to a senior nurse in the Blood transfusion service, and she said that if the general public were aware of how blood groups worked, they would be shocked at how many kids were not their assumed fathers. Blood types These days of course we have cheap private DNA testing.

Ooooh this could be a can of worms you've opened up here! I vaguely agree with most of your analogies but, I will comment upon no.5

Women are multi-orgasmic and capable of "indefinite performance", whereas a man is is "burnt out" fairly quickly. No man is ever totally 100% sure that the child a woman bares is really his. Therefore I can see why in societies where hereditary titles are passed through the male line why women are "locked up" in a harem or otherwise cloistered. Societies where such titles are passed through the female line are much more honest as most people are never in doubt as to who the mother of a child is.

I think your performance statement is probably more apocryphal, than medically proven. As for paternity, are you suggesting that generally speaking most women are not faithful to their partners?

No, I'm sure that the majority of partners are faithful to each other. But until the advent of DNA testing no man could be absolutely sure a child was his. He could believe and even be "sure" he was the true father but there was always a small element of doubt. In "normal" families this element of doubt is insignificant but when considering who is the correct heir to a throne, this becomes very important. In earlier times it only takes a rumour of infidelity on the part of the mother to justify a revolt by a competing aspirant to the throne.

Women are just as capable as men when it comes to "jumping the fence". The Patriarchies knew this, which is why women were "locked down".

Studies have found that men have specialised sperm cells whose job it is to "seek and destroy" fertile sperm from other males. If chastity was "natural" why would these be required ?

In the case of the female line, do men have no part to play other than at procreation?.....

Basically, that is correct although the woman may keep him around because she finds him pleasing. In most species procreation is the only purpose of the male, in a smaller percentage the males are required for defence and protection of the females and young against predators and in a very few species there is a lifetime bond. In the main though, once procreation has occurred, the male is disposable.

But until the advent of DNA testing no man could be absolutely sure a child was his. He could believe and even be "sure" he was the true father but there was always a small element of doubt

Why? If two people have a loving and trusting relationship, why would there be any reason to have doubt? Again, are you suggesting that all men secretly distrust women? Blissful ignorance may have a place.

In the case of heirs to a throne, you may have a point, and I'm quite sure that certain safeguards are probably in place.

You seem to have little faith in women, and and not much self-worth in men. That is a bit of a sad view of the world isn't it?

But until the advent of DNA testing no man could be absolutely sure a child was his. He could believe and even be "sure" he was the true father but there was always a small element of doubt

Why? If two people have a loving and trusting relationship, why would there be any reason to have doubt? Again, are you suggesting that all men secretly distrust women? Blissful ignorance may have a place.

In the case of heirs to a throne, you may have a point, and I'm quite sure that certain safeguards are probably in place.

You seem to have little faith in women, and and not much self-worth in men. That is a bit of a sad view of the world isn't it?

I'm talking from a scientific point of view rather than a romantic one. As I said both men and women are equally capable of infidelity, whether they actually become unfaithful depends on the relationship. Why are there all those old jokes about milkmen and postmen ?

Wasn't it a fact that when royalty "cohabitated" that there was a witness in the room to ensure that the deed was done and so that if the queen became pregnant a count back could be done to the night in question ?

It isn't a matter of faith in women and the value of men. It's a matter of looking at how the rest of the world operates from insects to homo sapiens. In almost all species there is competition between males for the right to procreate, this can even result in fights to the death. I know of no species where the females will regularly fight to the death over a male.

No, I'm sure that the majority of partners are faithful to each other.

It's still a majority, but.

If the often quoted American Association of Blood Banks paternity study in 1999/2000 were to be believed, 30% of dads were not the biological father. It is obviously wrong, it is actually the number of cases were the dad asked for a test, the actual figure is probably between 4% and 15%.

The problem these days, is the law, in most countries, is that the father is the womans husband at the time of birth. Several ex-husbands have been persued for child support even when the discovery of the childs parentage has been cause for the divorce.

If 30% of dads were not the biological father was to be splashed across the headlines, or maybe even worse tweeted around the world.
How many young men would get married?

Patrick McCarthy was floored to learn after his divorce that his 14-year-old daughter had been fathered by another man. He was even more stunned to find out that he would still have to pay $280 a month in child support.

Interesting links but I did not want this thread to concentrate on the fidelity issue. I'm more concerned about how and why each gender feels put down by the other, the "All women are b*tches, All men are b*stards" syndrome.

I compare the issue to the difference between Apple MACs and IBM PC's, equal, but totally different in the operating systems. Each has some minor advantages over the other. MAC's have the advantage in multi-media (which is why most video and audio editing suites are MAC based) while the IBM PC has an advantage in heavy duty number crunching.

There is no way you can get a program written for a MAC to run natively on a PC and visa versa. In the same way women and men do not understand each others way of thinking.

e.g. In the same way that MAC's are better at multi media, women are much better with words and the subtlety of language than men. Watch two women who have worn the same dress to a party, they can cut each other to pieces verbally, yet most men would not even notice there was a "knock down, drag out" battle going on. A man's "speech processor" is just not fast enough to follow the cut and thrust of it. In the same way, a woman can get frustrated at the way a man can sit "doing nothing" when he's watching a football match on TV. To the man, he is not "doing nothing", he's watching the game.

I see the problem as being due to the fact that women "parallel process" tasks while men "serial process". Maybe what we need is a human version of Java. :-)

Interesting links but I did not want this thread to concentrate on the fidelity issue. I'm more concerned about how and why each gender feels put down by the other, the "All women are b*tches, All men are b*stards" syndrome.

I compare the issue to the difference between Apple MACs and IBM PC's, equal, but totally different in the operating systems. Each has some minor advantages over the other. MAC's have the advantage in multi-media (which is why most video and audio editing suites are MAC based) while the IBM PC has an advantage in heavy duty number crunching.

There is no way you can get a program written for a MAC to run natively on a PC and visa versa. In the same way women and men do not understand each others way of thinking.

e.g. In the same way that MAC's are better at multi media, women are much better with words and the subtlety of language than men. Watch two women who have worn the same dress to a party, they can cut each other to pieces verbally, yet most men would not even notice there was a "knock down, drag out" battle going on. A man's "speech processor" is just not fast enough to follow the cut and thrust of it. In the same way, a woman can get frustrated at the way a man can sit "doing nothing" when he's watching a football match on TV. To the man, he is not "doing nothing", he's watching the game.

I see the problem as being due to the fact that women "parallel process" tasks while men "serial process". Maybe what we need is a human version of Java. :-)

T.A.

T.A.

I'm not going to respond to all your posts here, but I have noticed that you have made lots of assumptions made on very dodgy ground. For example, your social darwinism description of why women like to shop. Actually studies have show that the behaviour is more like hunting than gathering with the associated adrenaline rush that goes with stalking and capturing the prey. Men display the same behaviours, they just might be stalking different prey. I've known lots of men that will spend just as long looking at cars, or computers, or DIY tools as women do at "clothes" or "shoes". Woman and men have just been conditioned to like different things. Personally, I don't understand why I can't get given a drill for mother's day. I'd be much more thrilled with that than a pair of shoes.

Men and women are conditioned to be different form a very young age. Just go to Toys R Us and you can see what each is being trained to be, with separate toys for girls and boys. God forbid you are a boy that likes to wear nail polish, or play with a toy kitchen. That will soon be knocked out of them at preschool.

Why do women deal with their problems more passively and bitchily than men? Because of the power balance, because woman are not supposed to be assertive, they must get what they want in other ways or suffer the consequences.

I am sure lots of people don't like how I post here, once they realise I am actually a woman they no doubt think worse of me. Most of the time people assume I am a man until they discover otherwise. I deliberately chose a gender neutral screen-name so that I wouldn't be pre-judged. Otherwise I don't think it should matter, but it does.

I've played online games where would play some rounds as a woman and some pretending to be a man...and I mean pretending to be a man by not correcting their assumption that I was a man. I was treated very differently despite not being any different.

Biologically the differences between men and woman, although there, are actually very slight. Upbringing and societal pressures exaggerate those very slight natural differences.

Gender bias is ingrained from a young age, and for some reason the gender matters very much to people. When we discovered that our cat was male and not a female (during a trip to vet to get him spayed) the children were very upset and no longer knew how to relate to their cat. The cat of course had not changed and did not care what we called it or what we thought it was. It was our attitudes that changed. To us, we now had a completely different cat. Sex and sexual orientation may be assigned at birth, but gender is in the head.Reality Internet Personality

Thanks for the reply Es. I was waiting to see your opinion on the matter.

I'll dispute you on a couple of points.
First off I was talking about how women shop, not why.

Men and women are conditioned to be different form a very young age. Just go to Toys R Us and you can see what each is being trained to be, with separate toys for girls and boys.

We get back to the old "nature vs nurture" debate. Do you dispute that little girls want to grow up to be like their mothers and little boys want to grow up like their dads ? My first born was a girl, being "new age" parents her first toys were non gender specific or even "boy's" toys. She had a teddy bear but no dolls. However once she was old enough to decide on her own what toys she wanted, it was straight to the dolls aisle.

Women not assertive ? As a teacher you must have seen the cat fight that can go on when the Presidency of the Mother's Club or P&C, PTA (or whatever is known as in your neighbourhood) is up for grabs. Women are not more passive than men, just more subtle, they use a stiletto where a man uses a broadsword. This applies even when it is a woman vs woman contest and has nothing to do with with the male vs female power balance.

The majority of the most assertive people I've met have been women, and I don't mean they were b*tches, they were people who knew what they wanted and went for it, Hard.

Of course a man's attitude will change when he finds out you're a woman. In the same way your attitude would change if you found out that someone you assumed was female turned out to be male. To start off, you would feel a bit deceived which would change your attitude to them and you would start talking to them in the way a woman talks to a man instead of the way you talk to another woman. This is normal, both sexes have different manner of speaking depending on whether they're talking to a member of their own sex or a member of the opposite. If you don't believe me just sit back and observe. The pitch of the voice changes and so do the mannerisms. In general, I think the style of conversation becomes more guarded when it's a woman/man conversation, even if they close platonic friends.

I will agree with you about "gender is in the head". There are definite male and female psyches. Depending on the individual, they may be present to a greater or lesser degree but they are still there. I have been "an observer of the human condition" for many years and I've met a lot of people from wildly different backgrounds, income groups and so on and I've noticed that whether a woman is a "girly" girl or one who has been raised on a cattle station and can out ride and out shoot most men, there are still certain characteristics that define the fact they are female. The same applies to men and to gays and lesbians. When the most effeminate man or the butchest lesbian drops the their guard this psyche still shows through.

Why do you think single mothers have trouble raising sons ? It's because even at one or two years old there is still something inside his head that notices there is no other male around and therefore he is the "Silverback" of this small family. The only way I've seen the mother successfully overcome this is to come down hard and prove to him he isn't.

Nurture is important but inside everyone there are millions of years of evolutionary programming and instinct that cannot be denied or eliminated. In all species, the males act like males and the females act like females and there is no "Toys R Us" involved. Why should humans be any different ? We may try and change these basics with "Social Engineering" and even deny they exist but deep down inside they are still there.

Es. If you reply to this, before you do, just sit back and observe. Wait for people to drop their public face and you will see what I mean.

My first born was a girl, being "new age" parents her first toys were non gender specific or even "boy's" toys. She had a teddy bear but no dolls. However once she was old enough to decide on her own what toys she wanted, it was straight to the dolls aisle.